Though iPhoto and iOS made most of the headlines, Apple also brought …

In addition to launching a new iOS version of iPhoto last week, Apple also updated GarageBand and iMovie. iMovie 1.3 merely brought the auto-generated "trailers" feature from the desktop, but GarageBand 1.2 saw some serious feature additions, including the ability to edit individual MIDI notes, a new "Smart Strings" instrument, and the ability for iOS devices to have a virtual "jam session" over Bluetooth.

We decided to go hands-on with the new features in GarageBand to see how they pan out. In all, they compliment an already impressive mobile music-making app.

Smart Strings

You can play individual notes on a virtual string instrument, and can select between bowing and plucking.

Apple has added a virtual string section to GarageBand. Like other "smart" instruments, you can simply tap a chord to play notes from a combination of violins, viola, cello, and bass. Each chord has several variations you can tap, denoted by four sections on each chord bar.

Smart Strings give you a virtual string section at your command.

But appropriately, you can slide you finger along these bars for variable bowing. A quick tap might play a pizzicato plucking, while a short swipe plays a quickly bowed staccato note. Dragging your finger along from the top or bottom will draw out a note in legato style, and varying your swipe speed varies the loudness (or velocity of the MIDI note).

You can choose different styles of playing, and can turn off or on specific instruments from your string section to tailor the sound to your project.

Smart Strings come in four styles—Cinematic, Pop, Romantic, and Modern. Each of these variations has four different "autoplay" styles, and each autoplay style lets you tap with one, two, or three fingers for additional rhythmic variations. Finally, you can turn different parts of the string section on or off as well, so you can have just cello and first violin, or violins and viola. This allows for a lot of experimentation and richness from a fairly simple set of options.

Note Editor

For the strings, synths, and all other smart instruments, GarageBand now has a graphical note editor. Simply double-tap any green MIDI track and select the "Edit" option. In the edit mode, you can tap and drag notes to different pitches, or change the start of a note. Tap and drag the end of a note and you can extend it. Double tap a note, and you can cut, copy, delete, or paste. You can also edit a note's velocity—typically tied to loudness. A "more" option gives a variety of contextual edits, like bending, articulation, and more, depending on the smart instrument used to record the track.

Double-tapping a note in the Note Editor offers a variety of options, including tweak velocity and other note parameters.

A little red "pencil" button can be pushed, which enables tapping on the grid to add or delete notes. Tap in an empty space, and a note appears (in 4/4 time, it was a quarter note). Tap on a note, and it's deleted. The pencil button can be locked if you want to add or delete a lot of notes. Unlocking it will allow you to further edit newly added notes.

Notes can be added or deleted with simple taps, and tapping and dragging can move or extend notes.

You can pinch to zoom on the note grid to drill in for finer control or zoom out for the bigger picture.

While the note editor offers a lot of control, we do have one fairly major gripe—we could not find a way to edit all the notes of a chord simultaneously. It would be great if there was a way to do this, especially when editing strings or synths, which can have fairly complex chord structures that make it a chore to edit note by note.

UPDATE: A reader let us know there actually is a way to select multiple notes in GarageBand's Note Editor. Simply tap and hold on an empty section of the grid, and a small translucent square will appear under your finger. Drag a bounding box around various notes to select more than one. You can edit a group of notes' velocity and articulation, among other properties, as well as drag a group's start and end positions.

More Synths

GarageBand now includes several additional synths that can be used in both Smart Keyboard or Smart Bass mode. In additional to piano, organ, electric piano, and clav, you now have four different synths to play as smart keyboards. These options are particularly well suited to pop and dance music, especially if you have a love for '80s flair.

Smart keys include four new synth options, including Helix, Machine Language, Polarize, and Solar Sailor.

Additionally, Apple added four different synths that can be used as smart basses. Again, these options are much better for pop or dance music—the original smart basses left a lot to be desired if this was the type of music you were trying to make.

What's most interesting is that the smart basses retain a string-style input for playing. If you're used to playing a bass guitar, this style of input will likely feel more natural than using a keyboard, but you still get synth-based sounds out of it. This mixing of input style with different instrument sounds is exactly the kind of benefit MIDI has always offered—GarageBand is taking advantage of that with an interesting UI.

Smart Bass synths are controlled with a string interface instead of a typical keyboard interface.

Like GarageBand's other synths, both the new Smart Keyboard and Smart Bass synths offer knobs to tweak the sound in various ways depending on how the synth is modeled. We still wish there was a way to record the knob-tweaking as part of the performance, but that's a rather small nitpick compared to what GarageBand enables even a layperson to do with music.

Smart bass synth sounds can be tweaked with various knobs, like cutoff, resonance, mix, or frequency modulation.

Jam Session

Musicians who like to collaborate will especially appreciate the new "Jam Session" feature in GarageBand. This lets up to four iOS devices, including iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, to join together via Bluetooth to make a simultaneous recording.

One iOS device can serve as a "leader" for a Jam Session.

A small note icon with wireless radio "waves" now rests on the top toolbar. Tapping this button will allow one device to start up a session. The other devices can tap this button to join in. The "band leader" device controls playback, key, tempo, etc.

Devices connected to a Jam Session get a notice about which device is in control.

Tap record on the control device, and all other devices will play back whatever music has already been recorded—or just a track if there's nothing there yet. All four devices can play smart instruments, or record audio tracks from an instrument or mic. Once the control device stops recording, all the tracks are collected from the other three devices for mixing and editing.

We tested a quick jam session in action using an iPhone 4 and an iPad 2, and it performed flawlessly. We think this feature will really be a boon to bands demoing songs during the songwriting process, during practice, or even for recording a full album. GarageBand tracks from iOS devices can be imported on the desktop to GarageBand or Logic for further recording, editing, or mixing, so a jam session could easily end up as part of a finished recording. We also think the feature could be a lot of fun for music-minded friends, even just for goofing off.

The bass track was recorded on an iPad while a keyboard solo was added via a connected iPhone.

Merging and Sharing

GarageBand now has a "track merge" feature, one we suggested Apple add in our review of GarageBand for iOS 1.0. Merging (or bouncing) tracks is an excellent way to get around GarageBand's eight track limit. Once you have, say, a vocal track and two backup tracks, you can merge them into one single audio track. This will free up two additional tracks for recording more instruments.

GarageBand also offers more options for sharing tracks. You can use iCloud to save songs, which can be synced to other iOS devices. If you have iMovie installed, you can share a finished track to iMovie to use as background music for a video project. And you can publish songs directly to FaceBook, YouTube, or popular music sharing site SoundCloud. We think this additional sharing support, especially for SoundCloud, shows that Apple is really beginning to understand social media.

New sharing options include direct uploads to Facebook, YouTube, and SoundCloud.

Projects created on an iPad will show up on your iPhone, for instance. A green arrow icon notes that a project needs to be updated.

Finally, GarageBand now includes an improved project viewer that makes it easier to organize, sync, and share songs. Tapping and holding on a project, or hitting the edit button on the top right, will make your projects jiggle like iOS app icons. You can tap one or more projects to select them, and from there you can share, duplicate, delete, or sync to iCloud. Projects that are synced to iCloud have a small iCloud icon on them. Projects that have been updated but not synced have an arrow icon; tapping them will either upload changes to iCloud or download them, depending on which device they are edited on. You can also drag projects to reorder them, or drag them on top of one another to create an iOS-style "folder."

Tapping and holding on a project, or tapping the edit button, lets you organize your projects.

Projects can be organized into iOS-style folders

Conclusion

GarageBand 1.2 is a very solid update, expanding the core feature set in clever ways. Note editing and track merging make it a more complete tool for recording and mixing. And iCloud and social network sharing features give users more ways to move their music around and share it with others. We already gave GarageBand for iOS considerable esteem for its capabilities last year when it launched on the iPad, and then when it moved to the iPhone. If you haven't considered it before, and have even a passing interest in music, you should definitely take the plunge for $4.99.